Notes From the Trenches [2025-10-13]

Application Platform Help

From an email I sent to my students a little over a week ago.

• Common App - If you haven’t already, create an account here. Video walkthroughs - AXS Companion; Free, no personal information collected. Thank you to my IECA colleagues and Oregon State University.

• UC Application - If you haven’t already, create an account here. Video walkthroughs - UC Application YouTube Playlist; Free. Thank you to UC-Santa Barbara Admissions.

• CSU Application (CalState Apply) - If you haven’t already, create an account here. To start the application, you must add one “Program”. i.e., Select a campus, and a major at that campus. Video walkthroughs - CalState Apply YouTube Playlist ; Free. Thank you to California Polytechnic State University-San Luis Obispo Admissions.

Observations; or Questions I’ve been getting lately

Do’s

• In Common App, you have the option to preview (& download a copy of) the information that’s going to a college during the payment step. Please use this feature & preview carefully, including carefully checking whether the correct essay versions were pasted into the text boxes. (Note: Some info, such as demographic data, gets suppressed/is not visible to Admissions on the college side, even if it appears in the preview.)

• Be specific in your essays. Include details that highlight your personal qualities or skills. The “Gratitude” or “Thank you letter”? Or the “Note to roommate”? Show what you value, or your personal qualities, through what you’re thanking them for or telling them about. Go a step further in “Gratitude” or “Thank you letter” and show that you’ve taken to heart what they taught you and how you’ve put that into action. The “Why Us” or “Why Major” essays? Find something you’ve done that connects with something they have, or offer. (Yes, this means do the research now if you, like many students, didn’t do it before.) Ask yourself: If someone read your essay out loud to a roomful of people at school who know you, would they be able to guess who wrote it? The answer should be Yes.

• Plan to file a FAFSA for financial aid. Reason 1: Some colleges require a FAFSA to be considered for merit scholarships. Reason 2: Some state grant programs have higher income thresholds for eligibility and require the FAFSA. Reason 3: Some colleges won’t consider students for need-based financial aid in later years should unfortunate circumstances arise unless they have a FAFSA on file.

Don’ts

• You do not need to order official AP exam scores for every college right now. A few colleges accept them in place of SAT/ACT scores for admission. Most colleges don’t consider them for admission decisions. AP exam scores can, however, earn you college credit once you decide where you’ll be attending, so you’ll want to send official scores there in the spring. To find out how much credit, see College Board’s handy AP Credit Policy Search tool with links to each college’s website for more details.

• [Don’t] Panic. It will be OK. You’ve got this.